Our story dates back to the beginning of the Sixties, when Mr. Sergio Venturi, the founder of the company, began his activity working as wool cloth sorter for several wool factories in the city of Prato.
After classifying and sorting the colours and quality of the used clothing, he normally removed linings and buttons from the fabric, so that wool cloths were ready to be regenerated. The following steps were dyeing and carbonizing, two processes necessary to remove vegetable impurities like seams: at this point of the procedure, the cloths were ready for the tearing, a process through which the wool was made fibre. At the beginning, our tearing machine was made of an introducing band, where the cloths were put after they had been cut into small pieces by a cutter. Two overlapping pressing cylinders slowly addressed the cloths to a spiked drum - a 100 cm diameter cylinder with a higher peripheral speed than the speed of introduction of the material, which allowed the unravelling of fabric. Sometimes the repetition of the process was necessary to make wool softer, finally ready for the carded spinning. This work was normally done in small warehouses, and the mechanical production of wool was of 100/120 kg per hour maximum.
The economic miracle of those years developed growth and demand in Western countries, and it also imposed an epochal change in the textile sector of Prato, which adapted to the great demand of more resistant and low priced clothing. During this exceptional historical period, synthetic fibres were introduced in the global market.
In those years, enormous quantities of industrial waste of this new fabric were imported to Prato - mainly from the US, but also from other countries of the world. Until then, tearing machines were sufficient to regenerate soft wool cloths: but they had suddenly become obsolete with new fabrics like polyester, nylon and acrylic, more and more used in the production of clothing because of their great resistance. These fibres were also used in different percentages with woollen fabrics, so that cloths were more resistant and therefore less consumable.
In 1970 Sergio Venturi saw the opportunity for an important change, and decided to associate with one of the most renown textile groups of the time in the area of Prato: from this deal the company SFILART was born. At that point, a renewal of the machinery was necessary: a system with two lines of unravelling with two and three drums was installed, so that the company could meet a bigger demand (the production was now around 700/800 kg per hour), and a higher quality of products was offered, adequate to these new regenerable materials.
Afterwards twenty years of growth followed, but also collaborations with famous stylists who began to experiment the use of regenerated fibres for cloths of their collections: not only wool and synthetic cloths but also vegetable fibres like cotton, linen or yuta began to compose high-fashion yarn.
After the deep crisis of the textile sector in Prato, in 1990 another important change took place. Sergio’s son, Marco Venturi, became part of the company and modified the shareholder structure: SFILARTEX s.r.l. was created, and the company changed from an artisan one to an industrial one. The production plant was modified again, modern and more productive machines were added, the number of staff was increased and so was productivity. The aim was looking forward and not only in the market of Prato, strictly lined to traditional textile sector: other production sectors became interesting, like for example felts, geotextiles and wadding. The target market was no longer the national one, but the horizon was widen to a world market, and the company offered to its customers a well-established tertiary service and the selling of their products, specific for every single request.
Today SFILARTEX disposes of a state-of-the-art production plan, which is entirely automatized and with an average production of approximately 1800/2000 kg per hour. The company also offers a unique plant of cutting and mixing, able to regenerate different kinds of textile by-product and fibres, a textile lubrication plant for the superficial treatment of fibres with sanitizers and softeners, a tearing line with five drums able to open the most resistant materials.
Our products are exported worldwide for the manufacturing industries in textile yarn, nonwoven, wadding, felt and geotextile sectors, and they are all tested according to the current regulations and accompanied by a technical data sheet.
SECTORS OF REFERENCE:
- WADDING for the padding of sofas, mattresses, quilts, cushions.
- Needle-tufted and bonded FELT for footwear, noise protection for the automotive sector, noise protection panels for the construction industry and air filtration.
- Needle-tufted and bonded GEOTEXTILE for draining road surfaces, agriculture reservoirs, nursery sector.